Conflicting views on the feeder patterns could determine just how stable they'll be for families moving forward in Wake County's new student assignment plan.

During Tuesday's school board meeting, Democratic board members were skeptical about being able to guarantee that families could have a feeder pattern locked in for 13 years. Board members said it's more realistic to talk about guaranteeing stability for students once they're in a school,

But Republican board members and staff said that 13 years of feeder stability is possible.

How hard will it be for Wake County's new choice-based student assignment plan to fill new schools, especially ones opening in modular campuses?

As noted in this Dec. 23 North Raleigh News article by Chelsea Kellner, Wake school officials don't anticipate it being a problem. But others aren't as certain.

For instance, will parents choose the new Abbots Creek Elementary opening this summer at the modular campus next to East Millbrook Middle School? How likely are they to choose Abbots Creek considering that funding for the permanent location, adjacent to the North Wake Landfill, is from a bond issue that hasn't been scheduled yet?

The issues of stability and base assignment came up during Friday's presentation of Wake County's new student assignment plan to the Raleigh Regional Association of Realtors.

As noted in today's article, school administrators touted how the new plan will allow real estate agents to assure families that they will no longer have to worry about student reassignment. But the real-estate agents were concerned about how the loss of base assignments would impact their ability to sell homes.

“This is a hard reset and mental adjustment to make,” said Susan Pullium, a member of Wake’s student assignment task force. “There’s no longer base assignments.”

Just how much impact will the ability to apply to high-performing schools (formerly called achievement-choice schools) have on Wake County's new student assignment plan?

As noted in today's article, members of the student assignment task force promoted to the audience Wednesday how every family would have access to high quality schools via the high-performing school choices.

But Susan Pullium also said a number of times that no decision has been yet whether firm set asides need to be established for the high-performing schools. This comes after talk about using as much as a 20 percent set aside drew complaints from people such as school board chairman Ron Margiotta.

Could the development of feeder patterns be more of a hold-up on the new Wake County student assignment plan than coming to an agreement on achievement-choice schools?

As noted in today's article, staff's update on the student assignment plan included discussion on achievement schools and a presentation on sample feeder patterns. During the meeting, board members said zilch on the achievement schools but went into detail on the feeder patterns.

"We know this is contentious," Superintendent Tony Tata said to board members in response to the feeder pattern concerns. "This is high stakes. We want your feedback to make this right."

How far should Wake County go in the new long-term student assignment plan to balance academic achievement across schools?

As noted in today's article, the blue plan and green plan recommended by the student assignment task force don't go as far as the red plan and burgundy plan in terms of student achievement. Issues such as cost, proximity and stability knocked the red and burgundy plans out of the equation.

"We looked for the most feasible and acceptable models that are consistent with board policy 6200 and provided the best opportunities for achievement, stability and proximity,” said Superintendent Tony Tata.